Political Quotes

“I salute and appreciate the commitment of Mr. Young and Mr. Delaney to seek new ways to try to combat some old problems. We need creativity to address these challenges. There is no one single approach that will solve all these problems. Where I disagree with them is over how they choose to fund this initiative--a choice that I think they probably personally did not make--and the lack of safeguards to assure their very laudable objectives. This bill takes money that has always been dedicated to benefit vulnerable children away from the Department of Health and Human Services and authorized its expenditure for other purposes that may be very well intentioned, but that have absolutely nothing to do with vulnerable children. Now is not the time to further reduce this funding for needy children just because it happens to be an easy place to take money from. It is only $100 million, only five-tenths of a percent of the total TANF budget, but I can tell you that it is hard to come by $100 million to do anything to try to help vulnerable children, and it is a loss to have that money taken away. It is true that President Obama finally, after almost 8 years of his administration, proposed that the contingency fund be repurposed and that money be added to family assistance grants and require the States to use more of the resources they get from TANF for the purposes of TANF to prevent two-generational poverty.…”